An English professor at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs has assigned multiple texts bashing President Donald Trump as required reading in her rhetoric course, which labels his supporters as discriminatory, offensive and overly boisterous.
“Katherine Mack – who chairs the English Department at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs – has assigned anti-Trump material as required reading for her rhetoric course, which is a mandatory class for students majoring in ‘Rhetoric and Writing,’” Campus Reform reported. “[The] course requires students to read textbooks that bemoan the ‘Trump effect’ and describe Trump supporters as prejudiced against immigrants, Muslims and LGBTQ+ individuals.”
Liberal Indoctrination 101?
The texts teach that the Trump effect should be “immediately and forcefully challenged,” and despite the subjective subject matter, students wishing to graduate in their major must complete the course geared to affirm the ultra-left media’s take on politics – while attempting to undermine conservative news sources.
“The course – which fulfills a graduation requirement – also assigns supplementary readings from liberal outlets, such as an ‘NPR piece about fake news’ and a New York Times op-ed questioning whether Breitbart is ‘an ethical rhetor,’” Campus Reform Investigative Reporter Grace Gottschling informed. “The course, ENGL 4880 – ‘Topics in Public Rhetorics,’ is described as the ‘advanced study of the rhetoric of a particular public issue,’ [and] the course description also notes that ‘issues, theoretical materials, historical moment and readings’ will ‘shift’ as a specific topic is chosen for the course each time it is offered.”
A copy of Mack’s Fall 2018 syllabus was obtained by Campus Reform from an anonymous student who was deeply disturbed by the course’s biased content.
“[T]he political rhetoric of the 2016 election was particularly vitriolic and uncivil, and – according to many – even less grounded in objective truths than elections past,” the syllabus reads – before inciting students to react. “Speak up if you feel ‘triggered’ by something someone is saying or doing … [and] never demean, belittle, devalue or otherwise put down others for their comments, questions, experiences or ideas.”
Despite the acute leftward lean, the professor attempts to mask the political objective of the course by referring to classic educators, portraying the class as promoting moral character and claiming that the principles taught will lead to a successful career.
“Mack summarizes the purpose of the course with a question adapted from the Roman teacher of rhetoric Quintilian, asking ‘What does it mean to be a good person who speaks and writes well?’” Gottschling noted. “Mack also notes that the course – which qualifies as a ‘summit’ course under the UCCS Compass Curriculum – fulfills the program’s goal of giving students ‘the tools for professional and personal success’ after graduation.”
The respectful atmosphere toward differing opinions that Mack claims to promote appear to be thrown out the window once students open up their required texts.
“While Mack tells her students to refrain from belittling their classmates, her chosen reading assignments paint Trump supporters and conservatives as prejudiced, and depicts those who share Trump’s ideas [as being] prone to ‘shouting’ and ‘inciting xenophobia,’” the investigative reporter divulged.
Choice literature for the ‘social justice’ junkie
After reviewing Mack’s required reading list for the course, it was discovered that Bruce McComiskey’s Post-Truth Rhetoric and Composition and Brooke Gladstone’s The Trouble with Reality: A Rumination on Moral Panic in Our Time were the most overtly partisan books in the stack.
“[Post-Truth Rhetoric and Composition] analyzes the instances of [expletive for nonsense], fake news, feigned ethos, hyperbole and other forms of post-truth rhetoric employed in recent political discourse,” the publisher of the book – University Press of Colorado – states.
The author makes it clear that the goal behind his book is to keep students from being influenced by the president and incites them to condemn his character and policies.
“[If the] Trump effect [is not] immediately and forcefully [challenged, students will begin] inciting xenophobia, retreating into isolationism, resorting to shouting, causing disruption, spouting insults, securing exclusion, encouraging divisiveness, spewing invective, exploiting fear and desiring success at all costs,” McComiskey asserts in his book. “[Trump is a] first-rate actor in his post-truth world of made-up credibility.”
He goes on to imply that bigoted Trump supporters are the ones who gravitate toward his so-called deceitful nature.
“McComiskey claims Trump is untrustworthy and appeals the most to people who are prejudice,” TheBlaze reported.
One of the many left-leaning journalistic sources appealed to in the course and its texts is the Atlantic magazine, which attempts to stretch the racial divide and fan the flames of racial tension in America.
“The book also cites and article by Dan P. McAdams, Northwestern University psychology professor, who claims that the president’s largest voting block – white Americans – have ‘high scores’ on measures of authoritarianism that ‘tend to be associated with prejudice’ against a litany of minority groups, including LGBTQ+, immigrants, Muslims and African Americans,” Gottschling explained.
Another choice peace promoting politically correct racism is Gladstone’s anti-Trump book, The Trouble with Reality, which takes aim at dismantling the Trump administration piece by piece.
“Trump’s campaign rhetoric pumped out endless streams of comedy and melodrama, apocalypse and deliverance, bitterness and [expletive for nonsense],” Gladstone writes in her disturbingly partisan work. “To some, it was enthrallingly frank, [but] to others, Trump’s victory did not merely subvert America’s core values – it shattered their worldview. The codes more than half the nation devised to interpret the world, the channels they carved to divert the flow of incompatible ideas, collapsed.”
She then attempts to console her readers who are offended by Trump by pushing them to stand up and act out against the president to alleviate their anxiety.
“Meaningful action is a time-tested treatment for moral panic,” Gladstone assured in her book. “Since the president actually may believe the polls are rigged, even the most exemplary protests are unlikely to move his needle, [but] protests do raise funds, [and can] transform observers into activists.”
Supplementing the anti-Trump books throughout the fall semester in the course are left-leaning media outlets.
“During the very first class session, for instance, students will ‘listen and respond to [an] NPR piece about fake news’ and read and Inside Higher Ed op-ed, arguing that first-year college rhetoric courses can serve as an effective counter to a ‘post-truth’ culture,” Gottschling explained. “After a two-month interlude – during which the course will focus on the historical foundations of the field of rhetoric – the subject matter returns to the contemporary ‘post-truth environment,’ at which point students will be instructed to read a New York Times Magazine article titled ‘Down the Breitbart Hole,’ by Wil S. Hylton.”
After coloring the conservative news outlet as not exemplifying the so-called moral character of ultra-left journalists in the media, Mack asks students leading questions for students to answer – taking her readings into consideration.
“According to Hylton and/or to you, is Breitbart an ethical rhetor?” a question reads in one of Mack’s homework assignments. “How are you and Hylton defining ‘ethical rhetor,’ and in what sense does Breitbart align or not with that definition?”
Conservative students beware!
When discussing the anti-Trump’s syllabus, Campus Reform Media Director Cabot Phillips contended that because of the ultra-left subject matter, conservative students in Mack’s class will most likely feel too intimidated to voice their opinions with the professor and other students.
“If you’re an 18-year-old college student – or 20-year-old college student coming into class – you’ve already had this required reading,” Phillips told Fox & Friends Saturday, according to Fox News Insider. “You know exactly what your professor thinks of you if you’re conservative.”
He lamented that most university faculty go unchecked when pushing their partisan and politically correct views to students via curriculum.
“[Professors] know that they can push this rhetoric, and there won’t ever be consequences,” Phillips stressed. “People rarely hold them accountable.”
However, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs Chancellor Venkat Reddy insisted that the First Amendment is a priority in every classroom on campus – including Mack’s.
“[This university] will continue to be committed to the principles of free speech, academic freedom and respect for diverse viewpoints,” Reddy assured, according to Fox News Insider.
Yet it was contended elsewhere that instead of objectively educating students on the basics of various political worldviews, Mack’s class is merely an attempt to indoctrinate young adults and silence their speech.
Fox News Insider’s Todd Piro also said Saturday that the course is attempting to indoctrinate and silence speech.
“This is next-level stuff,” Piro impressed.
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Copyright American Family News. Reprinted with permission.
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